"picoult, jodi, mercy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Picoult Jodi)

It was bell-shaped and quiet, a delicate arch of every shade of greenery that Allie had stored in the refrigerated case. At two spots, a splash of bright red caladium peeked from behind feathers of grass, shocking as blood.
Allie took a step forward, and the woman jumped, her hand at her throat. "You're in my place," Allie said.
The woman smiled hesitantly. "Well, then . . . I'll move." She hastily gathered up the tools she'd filched from the back room, and in her hurry dropped a pair of shears on the floor. "Sorry," she murmured, dipping below the line of the counter to pick them up. She stepped around the counter and handed them to Allie like a peace offering.
It was the most presumptuous thing Allie had ever seen--some stranger walking into the store and making her own flower arrangement--and yet this woman seemed to blend into the shadows, like this had all been a mistake and out of her range of control. Allie glanced at the plum beret on the woman's hair, the nails bitten to the quick, the heavy knapsack slung against her right foot. She was about the same age as Allie, but certainly not from

Jodi Picoult
Wheelock or anywhere nearby; Allie would have remembered someone with eyes the wet violet color of prairie gentians.
Allie walked up to the counter, letting the softer greenery graze her palms. "I thought you might be looking for an assistant," the woman said. She held out her hand, which was callused at the fingers from florist's wire, and shaking slightly. "My name is Mia Townsend."
Allie could not tear her eyes away from Mia's arrangement, which brought to mind rolling fields and nickering horses and the hot, heavy press of a summer afternoon. She knew it had nothing to do with the actual flowers and ferns Mia had chosen, but rather the skill of the placement and the thoughts that had gone into it.
Allie had not been looking for anybody; in fact in a town the size of Wheelock most of her business came from the shop's association with FTD. But then again, Christmas was coming, and Valentine's Day, and she'd kick herself if she let someone with Mia's talent walk out the door before she could learn a thing or two from her.
As if she knew that Allie was equivocating, Mia suddenly reached down for her knapsack and pulled out a carefully wrapped package, which she began to unwind. Allie found herself looking at an exquisitely twisted bonsai tree; miniature, gnarled, ancient.
"Lovely," Allie breathed.
Mia shrugged, but her eyes were shining. "This is my specialty. They remind me of those babies you see sometimes, the ones with tiny little faces that look like they know all the wisdom of the world."
The wisdom of the world. Allie looked up. "I think," she said, "we can work something out."
T Tannah, who had a talent for eavesdropping, told Cameron that JLjL Verona MacBean had written a book on the image of hell.
"It's not like it used to be," she said, tracing the top edge of her coffee cup. "You know, fire and brimstone and all."
Cam laughed. "Don't tell Father Gillivray; he's looking forward to that stuff."
Hannah smiled at Cameron. "Verona says that instead of physical pain, it's more mental. Like, you know, if you marry this gorgeous guy only to find out in hell that he really married you for your money."

19
"I wouldn't worry," Cam said. "I don't pay you nearly enough."
She smirked. "And suppose that in order to marry this hunk, you gave up someone who was really in love with you. The pain you'd feel knowing you picked the wrong guy is supposedly what hell is like." Hannah wrinkled her nose. "Not that I can see where Verona MacBean, Wheelock Queen, would know what hell is like at all."
Camerona's full-time sergeant, Zandy Monroe, stuck his head out from the locker room. "You forget, Hannah, that Verona used to date the chief."
Cam threw a stack of mail at him. "Don't you have anything better to do?"
"That depends," Zandy said, grinning. "You taking me out to lunch?"
"No," Cam said. "I'm taking Allie out." He surprised himself; this wasn't something they'd planned when she stopped by earlier, but he knew she'd jump at the offer to spend an hour with him. He pulled on his heavy blue coat and locked his office door behind him. "If the town comes under siege," he said to Hannah, "you know where I'll be."
Walking down the half block to Allies flower shop, he started to smile. He'd step into the store and tell her he was looking for a bouquet, dahlias and lilies in colors that called back August. He'd say it was for someone special and he'd make her play along and give him a gift card and then he'd write, What are you doing for the rest of your life?
Humming, Cam threw open the door of the flower shop and came face-to-face with a woman he had never seen before. Allie's name died on his lips as he stared at the tangle of hair that bobbed just to her shoulders, the soft swollen curve of her lip, the pulse at the base of her throat. She was not beautiful; she was not familiar; and still all the breath left Cam's body. As he grasped the hand she extended in greeting, he realized that her eyes were blue-violet, the shade that he'd dreamed as the Bay of Biscay.
Oh," Allie said, coming out from the back room. "This is Mia." And that was all she had time to tell Cam before Zandy Monroe burst through the door of the shop, throwing it back against its hinges hard enough to crack one pane of glass.

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"Chief," he said, "you'd better come."
Years of instinct had Cameron flying out the door behind his sergeant, left hand trained and ready on his gun. He saw a growing crowd of people in front of the police station; from the corner of his eye he noticed Allie and Mia shivering their way closer to the commotion.
With adrenaline pulsing through his limbs, Cam stepped into the center of the group, where a red Ford pickup truck was parked. Zandy walked up to the driver's-side window. "Okay," he said, "this is the chief of police." With a shrug at Cam, he murmured, "Wouldn't talk to anyone but you."
"Cameron MacDonald?"
The man's voice was strong but strained; an officer with less experience than Cam might not have noticed the pain that ran ragged over the syllables. "Yes," he said. "What can I do for you?"
The man stepped out of the car. He did not live in Wheelock, but Cam thought he'd seen him around town this past week. At the post office, maybe the tavern at the Inn. He was every bit as tall as Cam, but thinner, as if being alive had simply taken its toll. "I'm James MacDonald," the man said, loud enough for everyone to hear his last name. "I'm your cousin." He took a step back toward his truck, gesturing toward the passenger seat, in which a woman was slumped over, sleeping. "My wife here, Maggie, is dead." He looked up at Cameron MacDonald. "And I'm the one who killed her."
TWO
A Totwithstanding Verona MacBean's standards, all hell broke loose. J. if Two women fainted, one striking her forehead on the sidewalk so that a thick red pool of blood puddled under her cheek. In a pointless act of chivalry Art Maclnnes, the local barber, walked up to James MacDonald and punched him in the nose. Two children on bright neon bikes wove around the pickup truck and through the festering crowd.
"All right!" Cam yelled. He gestured to Zandy, who started to walk around to the other side of the pickup. For all Cam knew, this guy could be some nut; the lady in the front seat could be napping or in a diabetic coma or playing along. Cam turned around to face the crowd. "You all go home," he said. "I can't take care of this if you don't leave."
No one moved.
Cam sighed and took a tentative step toward James MacDonald, his arms stretched out in front of him. James was slightly hunched over, holding his hands up to a face streaming with blood. Cam reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. "Here," he said, waving the small white square in front of James's face, in a gesture that looked much like a surrender.
James MacDonald hadn't done anything threatening; there was no reason to bring him into the station in handcuffs. Cam would

Jodi Picoult
sit him down, offer him coffee, try to get him talking. He wouldn't arrest him just yet.
"Chief," Zandy Monroe said, "the door's stuck."
At the sergeant's voice, James MacDonald whirled around to see Zandy tugging at the passenger door of the pickup truck. When it wouldn't budge, Zandy slipped two fingers into the partially unrolled window and tried to reach the woman's neck to get a pulse.
With a feral cry, James MacDonald ripped out of Cam's grasp and ran to the other side of the truck. He pulled the sergeant away from the door, throwing him backward with the bodily force that a tall, strong man learns to keep in check. "Don't you touch her," he screamed at Zandy, his fists clenched, his teeth obscenely white against mottled skin. He turned back to the door and wrenched it open, and that was when Cam saw the door hadn't been stuck, but locked; that James MacDonald had ripped it from its bearings. He caught the body of his wife as it slumped up against him; pressed his cheek against hers. He spoke against the white curve of her neck. "Don't you touch her," he whispered.
Cam's eyes met Zandy's over the hood of the truck. He started to walk around to the passenger side as Zandy moved closer to James MacDonald. But James did not resist as Cam pulled him out of the cab of the truck. "Mr. MacDonald, I'm going to have to put you under arrest." He snapped handcuffs over the man's wrists. "Uh, Sergeant," he said, nodding at the body in the truck, "you want to take care of this?"